New User Interface for Blind

• 13 Jul 2024

Why in News?

Recently, Experts from the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad, in collaboration with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, have created a tool for blind and visually impaired individuals to create and access chart images.

Key Points

• Blind people can use this tool to search images and understand them with alternative texts (Alt-text) generated by Artificial Intelligence based software.
• The research work discussed in a paper titled 'Alt4 Blind: A User Interface to Simplify Charts Alt-Text Creation' is presented at an international conference on computers helping people with special needs in Linz, Austria.
  • Alt-Text is manually crafted by authors, but this approach frequently results in problems such as oversimplification or overcomplexity.
    • Emerging trends have seen the adoption of AI technology for the generation of Alt-Text.
  • The research presented an online, open-source tool to enhance alt-text writing by using Al image retrieval, making it more engaging.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• AI is defined as the ability of machines and systems to acquire and apply knowledge and to carry out intelligent behaviour.
  • The term "Artificial Intelligence" was coined by John McCarthy, an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He was one of the founders of the discipline of AI.
• It includes technologies like machine learning, Deep Learning, Big Data, Neural Networks, Computer vision, Large Language Models etc.
• The ideal characteristic of artificial intelligence is its ability to rationalize and take actions that have the best chance of achieving a specific goal.